“Why keep pushing food that people don’t want to eat?” asked Edmond Ross, a spokesman for the prison bureau. “Pork has been the lowest-rated food by inmates for several years"...

“I find it hard to believe that a survey would have found a majority of any population saying, ‘No thanks, I don’t want any bacon,'” said Dave Warner, a spokesman for the Washington-based trade association, which represents the nation’s hog farmers....

Warner said pork is healthy and economical.... "Not to throw beef under the bus, but we cost a lot less than beef.”

Why don't they just admit they're doing it to accommodate religion and it's easier to have one rule that works for everyone than to bother with the complexity of alternative meals for the minority who must avoid pig products?

The prison system has long made accommodations for Muslims and Jews by providing alternatives to pork and halal and kosher foods. Ross declined to say whether there has been an increase in Muslim or Jewish inmates in recent years and whether that may have factored into the survey responses.

“In general we welcome the change because it’s facilitating the accommodation of Muslim inmates,” said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the country’s largest Muslim civil rights advocacy group. “We hope it’s not an indication of an increasing number of Muslims in the prison system.”

Hooper predicted that anti-Islam groups would spin the decision into a case of the federal government acting under pressure from Muslims. “This is just the kind of thing that drives them crazy,” he said. “It will stoke the fires of Islamophobia based on the usual conspiracy theories.”

The government won't own up to its accommodation of religion because it's afraid of criticism by Islamophobes? I would think that criticism could be advantageously leveraged by this administration. I think this administration is more worried about getting seen accommodating religion when it's fighting against accommodation on other fronts, notably same-sex marriage, abortion, and birth control.

But come on, don't lie. Prisoners don't like bacon?! That's about the most ludicrously unbelievable thing I've ever heard the government say.

110 comments:

Homer: "Lisa, honey, are you saying you're never going to eat any animal again? What about bacon?"Lisa: "No."Homer: "Ham?"Lisa: "No."Homer: "Pork chops?"Lisa: "Dad! Those all come from the same animal!"Homer: "Yeah, right, Lisa. A wonderful, magical animal."

This is accommodation for the Muslims pure and simple. For many Southerners pork (ham, pork roast, pork chops, ribs, barbeque) would be the preferred meat over beef and chicken. Nobody wants bacon for breakfast? You got to be kidding.

Why don't they just admit they're doing it to accommodate religion and it's easier to have one rule that works for everyone than to bother with the complexity of alternate meals for the minority who must avoid pig products?

You're kidding, right? Because mendacity is the default mode for politicians, as you should know by now.

But come on, don't lie. Prisoners don't like bacon?! That's about the most ludicrously unbelievable thing I've ever heard the government say.

Oh, I don't know. How about "if you like your plan you can keep your plan, period."

I love bacon, but it is possible to make it taste terrible. If they're serving up the tough, flavorless, bacon-shaped stuff you find on most chain-hotel breakfast buffets, then I can see how it might get a low rank on a survey. Sausage, on the other hand...

"Why don't they just admit they're doing it to accommodate religion and it's easier to have one rule that works for everyone than to bother with the complexity of alternate meals for the minority who must avoid pig products?"

Because they are government and like their elected leaders whose example they follow, the truth is not a goal, it's an accident. Much of what federal government does is built on lies or deception of one kind or another. This is an essential element of their culture.

Prisons are now run by the inmates. You cannot stand alone; you have to join a group for protection and survival. Nation of Islam is a viable choice for black inmates. They have been very successful with conversions. I think OJ Simpson converted?

Ironic that the Secular State of France, known for its extreme political correctness, has continued its march to produce a totally integrated society. As if to say, there is only ONE secular culture and we all eat the same food. Don't like it? Go home.

It is easy to say 'well who cares, I'm not fighting for inmate food choices."

This is battle-space. CAIR has no problem changing the dietary rules for 90+% of the population. It won't stay at the prisons, and it shouldn't be allowed to stay there either: because that accepts the logic that catering to Muslim sensibilities is a 'fair approach'.

It's like the bully who steals the candy and then 'lets' you have half: it's worse than outright stealing because it adds a submission that not only *can* the bully steal, but that he is by right the authority on the matter.

No Jello or gummy-bears either. All made with pork (well pork based gelatin)...

I'm Catholic, and I probably eat a little pork about once a month, if that. I don't like the taste. I don't eat bacon, although I use a chunk of pork fat when I make my baked beans (maybe twice a year).

Pork is just a worthless food in our home, but pork gelatin is in everything these days.

I agree that the government is probably lying, but I don't understand all the concern for the non-Muslim inmates. Really, who besides pork producers should care if inmates can't have bacon?

If I run out of bacon on a weekend morning, I have to run to the store and wait in line and pay for my own bacon. Why should this part of life be better for a prison inmate? Bacon is a free man's indulgence.

Because it should be us determining what prisoners can and cannot have, not invading Muslims.

How have we not learned this lesson by now: tyrants always start by taking power where it is least objectionable. Then once the principal of the matter is accepted, they move on into more intrusive spheres.

It's why gay marriage started with 'we just want the right to visit our dying loved one in the hospital!' bullshit. It's why gun control always pounces on dead children but is always silent about thug life slaughtering one another in Chicago. it's why drones and the destruction of privacy are always billed as going after terrorism but somehow managed to get turned back on the American people.

But come on, don't lie. Prisoners don't like bacon?! That's about the most ludicrously unbelievable thing I've ever heard the government say.

This is the new nation we live in: The government has always lied to us from time to time, as needed. Perceptive people have always known this. The difference now is that they don't care if everybody knows that they are lying to us. At least in the past, they had enough respect for the people to make reasonable, believable lies.

Hooper predicted that anti-Islam groups would spin the decision into a case of the federal government acting under pressure from Muslims. “This is just the kind of thing that drives them crazy,” he said. “It will stoke the fires of Islamophobia based on the usual conspiracy theories.”Hooper's organization, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, has conspired to illegally fund Hamas:http://www.nysun.com/national/islamic-groups-named-in-hamas-funding-case/55778/

"This isn't an accommodation, it's making everyone live by the religious strictures of some. An accommodation would be to offer alternatives to the pork products when the pork products are served."

Normally, the preferences of the majority are automatically accommodated in setting up an institution, and it's the minority that has to ask for the accommodation. But one can also choose to set up an institution that takes account of all the special needs that exist within the group and plans one way to do things that will not burden anyone's religion.

Thus, if you needed to schedule an event and you might naturally avoid Sunday, the majority's sabbath, without even thinking about religion, but if you started thinking, you might say, let's avoid Saturday and Friday too. You want a time that will work for all.

It's like that. You might feel sympathetic to the prisoners who never get something they want, but their needs are subordinated to administrative efficiency. If they want to eat what they like, they shouldn't have committed the crimes that put them under the control of the government.

First they came for the bacon, and I said nothing because I keep kosher...

In all seriousness, though, I've read that most prisons go out of their way to provide as much good-tasting, starchy/carby, filling food as they can with very limited budgets, the idea being that keeping inmates fat and happy reduces fights and aggressiveness generally.

Ann Althouse said...Thus, if you needed to schedule an event and you might naturally avoid Sunday, the majority's sabbath, without even thinking about religion, but if you started thinking, you might say, let's avoid Saturday and Friday too. You want a time that will work for all.

It's like that. You might feel sympathetic to the prisoners who never get something they want, but their needs are subordinated to administrative efficiency. If they want to eat what they like, they shouldn't have committed the crimes that put them under the control of the government.

Ok, but what's the legal rule for determining when something is and isn't a government accommodation? It can't just be when they admit "we're doing X for reason Y," since of course they wouldn't say that. And the principle that we can assume something is permissible as long as we can't show that it was done on purpose also can't be true, since we have lots of findings of disparate impact wherein no one even tries to show that the outcome was the result of deliberate choices/actions--and that notwithstanding the program or structure is found to be improperly discriminatory based only on the outcome.

On the surface that'd be a good idea, but in practice wouldn't work well. The inmates have to feel like their salutary (from the point of view of the prison officials) dietary choices (to load up on carbs, etc) are their own choices. Unless they WANTED to eat more tofu they'd reject you making that change, and from my experience it's difficult (and therefore costly) to make tofu as appealing to most American as even low quality "comfort food."

"Ok, but what's the legal rule for determining when something is and isn't a government accommodation? It can't just be when they admit "we're doing X for reason Y," since of course they wouldn't say that."

Accommodation is permissible, and it's required under RFRA. It's just an issue of how the accommodation is done. I'm complaining about the failure to be up front about the intention. Here's the Supreme Court case that explains (unanimously) why it's not an Establishment Clause violation.

Basically, it's permissible because government is relieving a burden that is imposed by government.

There might be some argument based on the idea that the accommodation is done through burdening other persons, but I don't think that should work, because everyone is getting fed, fed the same thing.

Ok, but what's the legal rule for determining when something is and isn't a government accommodation?

I don't think there is one, because I don't think there is a need for one. You can request/demand an accommodation if you feel that a policy infringes your free exercise/RFRA rights. But I don't think there is any case where the government is required to prove that something is or is not done as an accommodation.

I've heard that the only meal where people can be happy consuming the same thing every day is breakfast. Bacon and eggs every morning, or yogurt and black coffee every morning, whatever. So, to save money and accommodate everyone, prison breakfast will be Cheerios, an every meal shall be breakfast.Yes, my IQ soars into the triple-digits. Why do you ask?

Ann Althouse said... Accommodation is permissible, and it's required under RFRA. It's just an issue of how the accommodation is done. I'm complaining about the failure to be up front about the intention.

I understand, and you're correct to complain about the clearly false weasel-y excuse, I'm just trying to work out the general (legal) rules. I'd think first you'd have to say "is this change an accommodation" and then say "is this accommodation permissible under RFRA (or some other law)," no? I'm wondering if there are rules or definitions that one would use to make the determination of whether a given change should be considered an accommodation. I...am not a lawyer.

"Warden, it's that time of year again. I gots to have my jarhzeit candles to light in memory of my halakhic homies, Pinchas & Chaim, who got taken out in that rumble with the Lubavitchers. My brothers, I'll mourn you 'til I join you!"

Ignorance is Bliss said...No. RFRA does not prohibit any accommodations ( unless they would impose on someone else's RFRA rights, in which case they would need an accommodation-accommodation ).

Ok, so what I'm asking about is the general case and/or an insight into the legal framework used to decide cases like this. If someone asks for some dietary change and they're asking for it for religious reasons and the prison denies them, and that person then sues the prison for unequal treatment with the argument that the prison accommodated Muslim prisoners' religious demands to remove pork from the facility, how will the prison fight that? Or what if a school allowed time before classes started for Christian students to pray at their desks but then didn't allow Muslim students to pray on mats during the day--if the school was sued and wanted to argue that the change that allowed the Christian prayers wasn't an accommodation what, legally speaking, would they need to show?

If the prison had a rule from the beginning that they wouldn't ever have pork and could articulate a reason for the rule I think you'd normally assume that reason was valid and unrelated to any effects it might have on prisoner's religious observations. Since that's not the case here (the prison did allow pork and have now made a CHANGE to ban it) I think they'd need to PROVE (or at least demonstrate to some degree of satisfaction) that the change was not due to influence X, Y, or Z--with a possible X being consideration for the desires of religious inmates. If the prison shows favoritism towards some religion but not others then they might be at risk of a lawsuit, so it's obviously in their interest to claim the reason had nothing to do with religious-based demands. My question is what would the prison/institution need to do to show that a given change was not the result of a religious accommodation (even if it had that effect), since just making that claim is clearly not sufficient.

I don't think equal treatment enters into it. If a policy causes an undue burden on someone's religious practices, and there is some less-burdensome alternative that would still meet the government interest, then the government must make that accommodation. That is independent of whatever accommodation they made for another group.

Someone claiming an undue burden could certainly point to other practices to prove that the accommodation is possible while still meeting the government's interests. But that is true independent of whether those practices were an accommodation to another group or not.

Ignorance is Bliss: a government institution treating religions differently (deferential towards one but not another) doesn't violate equal treatment and/or 1st Amend. prohibitions on gov establishing a religion? Isn't that why states can't have Christmas holidays/displays, etc? In this conception, the prison deciding to change its rules to conform with a the religious demands of some inmates would be tantamount to the prison (and gov) endorsing that belief (at at least that the belief itself is in some way valid or valuable).

From what I've heard from friends/family who work in the Federal prison system, this is just part of a larger trend, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons has become very, very deferential to Islam.

Just anecdotal, but my mom and some friends are all set to go into the Federal prison in the town next to hers to run an inmate-requested Bible study. The inmates requested this church in particular (it's the only Evangelical one nearby), so the church put a group together that met the prison guidelines, the volunteers all passed background checks, everything was done. And now they wait ... because this prison can't have the Bible study unless there is a corresponding study group for Muslims. No Muslim inmates have requested such a group, but that doesn't matter, from what the church has been told. The FBP wants the number of groups to be equal in every facility - or at least that appears to be what's going on.

Since when did the Federal Bureau of prisons give a damn about what prisoners want? The bureau always buys the cheapest frozen way past the sale date meats it can and pork is cheaper than meat. As as taxpayer, save me my money and give the bum's the cheapest meat they can find. If a prisoner has a religious objection, so what? If they were truly religious to begin with they wouldn't be in prison.

the doctrine of Stalin. Probe with bayonet. If you meet mush, advance! If you meet steel, withdraw. Communists walk down hallways testing every doorknob, in case one opens. Any door to power is a good one.

I'd rather think that it was either a rational transaction, the greatest good for the greatest number, or a way to mess with the prisoners, then to think that it was kowtowing to religious interests. As for that, Jews have requested or if you wish demanded kosher alternatives but since when do you stop other people from eating with what they want to eat? and frankly, I'd rather have opportunities to corrupt views religious groups. Let there be the temptation and them to come to attend the weekend in their social and political power.

I assume that despite all of the good things you hear about them that Utah's full of prisons and the prisons are full of Mormons. Not entirely full but I'm sure there are plenty of Mormons in prison. Do they really set up the balls to run prison life have some kind of gang? There are plenty of gangs in prison. That's what Islamofascism is, it's a gang masquerading as a religion.

also, do you remember potatoes coming off the USDA list? You remember Bloomberg with soda in New York? This really is real full. stop. totalitarian type fascism. Althouse, you like politicizing things? This is politicizing food. That's what they did in the Holodomor in the Ukraine. It's a difference in degree not in kind.

They wanna - it's like William S Burroughs wrote - they want to jump down into your stomach and help you digest your food. This drive to take control of others what is it? Tell people what to do? Yes it's necessary. It's a necessary evil. The better sort will not delight in it.

But so many do. Look at Hillary! saying Fuck You! to the men serving and protecting them all. People who mistreat servants, like children and animals, are of low character and not entirely welcome in my company, or on my ballot.

It's an issue of taxpayer concern if they are replacing perfecting serviceable pork with much more expensive beef. I have no issue with ensuring that there is an alternative to pork served whenever pork is the main dish, but it doesn't have to be a great alternative - bean burger patties will do.

Sure, why feed them at all. Or feed them Alpo. Maybe we could give them electric shocks. If they're human, and you don't want to turn them into animals, there is a certain baseline of decency to be preserved.

Also, what can be given can be taken away. It's an additional tool of control.

Ms. Althouse, if it is to streamline and not have to prepare special meals for some inmates, where is the cost savings? With beef prices so much higher than pork, it would seem feeding 200,000 prisoners only beef would cost more than accommodating Muslims. I can understand for prisons with a high Muslim population, but unless every Federal prison has a significant Muslim population, many inmates are being punished unnecessarily.